Roubo

Almost coincident with my previous Roubo this much more successful bench was built in the barn, using surplus SYP timbers from the barn itself. The barn floor plan had been reconfigured from its days as a dairy barn so there were several pieces of unused timber available for new projects like this bench.

From the outset I made the objective that this bench would be the simplest possible, big slab, big legs, no vises relying instead on holdfasts.

Since we were not yet living in the Highlands the schedule of the bench project depended on my periodic visits to work on and in the barn.

The almost 6-inch-thick slab was glued up on an unseasonably warm January day when we were able to get the shop space up to almost 50 degrees with my two kerosene heaters.

The next session of working the slab was less than a month later when the outside temperatures were near single digits, and we were barely able to crack freezing in the space.

In another three weeks it was mild enough to work in shirt sleeves. Ahh, weather in the mountains.

Once the top was dimensioned and the mortises cut and chopped, the leg tenons were worked with the pieces being held in my Emmert K1. The legs were tulip poplar timbers left over from who knows what project, measuring 6″ x 8″.

Soon it was time to sledge home the leg tenons into the top mortises.

I added oversized stretchers and left the bench pretty much like this, in use, for another couple of years.

Eventually I spent the time on the final flattening of the top and filled its voids to make it a first-class working surface. It was not smooth but I didn’t really care about that as long as it was flat.

Immediately after that I sealed the whole bench with thinned varnish/tung oil mix. That really emphasized the cross-hatch pattern employed during the flattening process.

Once the sealant had hardened I toothed the entire top and pushed it up against the window and it remained there until last summer, when it was relocated to the other end of the shop where it still serves as my primary finishing station.

This was my first truly massive bench, so heavy I can barely move one end of it at a time. I love the thick slab top but the legs are a little too large and the stretchers are just ridiculous. With a re-do I would reduce the legs to more like 6″x 4″ and the stretchers to 3″ or 4″ wide at the most.

And, a bench without clamping vises works just fine, thank you very much.

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2 Comments on Workbench Wednesday — #6 (2011) A Vise-less Roubo

Hi Don. Love your tour through your workbench inventory. In what way are the legs too large on this bench? Is it that making smaller legs would have been easier, but the bench works just fine now, or does the size of the legs interfere with the function of your bench now? And if so, what is the issue you have with your bench?

I am delighted you are finding the series amusing. As for the legs on the bench, perhaps it is merely aesthetic/proportional for me. To be sure they were beasts to wrestle around with, and they are far too large for what is strictly necessary. That said, The Roubo benches portrayed in L’art du Menuisier are at the very least substantial. Of course the large legs on my unit do not hinder the bench’s performance in any way except to limit the accessibility to the space underneath, although that is more of a stretcher issue.